Newsademic British English edition 260

ic h e l a n g e l o
'
s
 
h a n d s
Michelangelo was an Italian R e­
naissance painter, sculptor, poet, en­
gineer, and architect. Some people 
think he was ‘the greatest artist of 
all tim e’. A medical researcher has 
been studying pictures o f M ichelan­
gelo, historical documents and the 
artist’s own letters. He now believes 
that Michelangelo suffered from a 
disease, which affected the bones 
and joints in his hands.
Sistine Chapel ceiling p a in ted b y M ichelangelo
The artist was born in 1475. It’s 
known that he continued to work 
until a few days before his death, 
aged 88, in 1564. For the final 15 
years o f his life, Michelangelo 
had deformed and twisted hands.
Several o f M ichelangelo’s paint­
ings and sculptures are some o f the 
world’s most famous works o f art. 
Two o f his best-known sculptures 
are called 
D avid
and 
Pieta.
Michelangelo began the sculp­
ture o f 
D avid
when he was only 26 
years old. Art experts say that the 
5.2-metre (17 feet) tall statue is the 
most perfect figure o f a male nude 
ever made. It is carved from a single 
block o f marble. This is a type of 
hard, white coloured stone. Marble 
is often used for sculptures or as a 
building material.
M ichelangelo’s Pieta
Originally the statue was to be 
one o f many that would stand along 
the edge o f the roof o f the cathedral 
in the city o f Florence. The statue is 
o f a hero from a well-known Chris­
tian Bible story. In the story David 
kills a much bigger man, or giant. 
He does this with a small stone 
thrown from a sling. By the time the 
statue was finished, it weighed 5.5 
tonnes. It was too heavy to stand on 
the cathedral’s roof. A decision was 
made to put it on a plinth outside 
Florence’s town hall. It stayed there 
for nearly 400 years.
By 1873 officials had become 
worried that the statue was being 
damaged by rain and air pollution. 
It was moved into Florence’s Ac- 
cademia Gallery. A replica, or copy, 
was set up in its place outside the 
town hall. Today, tens o f thousands

---